Friday, December 12, 2008

I have been busy with lots of things lately, including getting my new computer set up and running. I think we are finally there. So I can "celebrate" by getting a Show & Tell entry posted today!

Since I've been so cold this past week, I thought maybe I should share some more warm weather pictures from our vacation. (By the way, I'm beginning to think the REAL reason we only go on a vacation once a year is that it takes me SO long to share pictures afterwards. Sheesh. Part of the blame does need to rest with our dino-dial, but until cable internet or something similar is available here, I guess that's unavoidable) And the day we visited St Augustine, FL it really was quite warm!

St Augustine is the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in North America - different from Jamestown VA in that St Augustine was, of course, settled by the Spanish. Since we are studying US History this school year, and have discussed all the earliest settlements, I insisted that we take advantage of a Florida vacation by visiting the Spanish settlement and seeing how it compared to the English settlement of St Mary's City that we visited earlier. Quite a conrast in weather, geography, and architecture - although in many ways daily life would have been similar.

The main attraction at St Augustine is the Castillo de San Marcos, which is operated by the National Park Service, and has a long and interesting history.

We entered through two drawbridges - there's even a moat!

All of these castle walls are constructed of coquina:

The courtyard:

Up on the deck, we got a close look at many sizes and types of Spanish cannons.

Hmmm....

This turret was where a sentry could watch the bay for any approaching ships.

I loved the view through that little window.

The old Spanish flag:

I've got pictures of the inside of Castillo de San Marcos too, but its getting late and I have other things on my to-do list today. I know, shocking. And hard to believe that I have other things I should do besides blog, where ARE my priorities anyway? ;-)

Very neat photos of the Castillo. I'll bet those that used it were a lot smaller than we are. Sorry that I am late in doing S&T but I had grandchildren over for the weekend and couldn't get back to the computer.